Daily Thought

  Love, Sorrow, Fruitfulness One of the most important things in the spiritual life is to understand well the close relationship between love and sacrifice. It is easily understood that love is the basis of perfection, and the soul delights in confirming it. For love marvelously corresponds to something deep that the soul bears in its interior: a vital yearning that is vehement and, in a certain sense, unparalleled. And when we come in contact with what is fleeting and superficial, the emptiness of the affections of earth, we impetuously fling toward divine love. That love is so profound that it reaches to the deepest part of our soul, into regions that mundane affections never touch. It is so perfect that it satisfies forever without ever tiring. It is so enduring that it is immortal and so abiding that nothing and no one can uproot it when it has implanted itself in our heart. Frequently, however, one has an inexact concept of love.… It [the soul] does not understand that in this lif

To Possess God Saint Jane’s advice to a soul suffering from spiritual trials: Remain, I beg of you, unshaken in the assurance I give you on God’s part that your faith, hope, and charity are more alive and more perfect than they have ever been. Think no more whether you possess them or possess any virtue. With a mental loving glance at your resolutions, abide in this surety. Carefully avoid any desire to be delivered from your trouble and deprivation. It is a grace that God gives you in order to perfect in you all virtues. It is a reward and not a chastisement. Have no doubt of this. God wills that you should bear this trial patiently, in absolute submission to him, without allowing your mind to seek either sight or knowledge of what is passing within you. Forbid all disputation or reflections on your temptations whatever they are, and do not ask yourself why this trial is given you. Make no effort to analyze or to subdue your sufferings, temptations, troubles, sorrows, darkness, obscur

  Flood Our Souls With Grace!     For       there is one God;          there is also one mediator between God and humankind,       Christ Jesus, himself human,          who gave himself a ransom for all.… 1 Timothy 2:5–6 God became human in Christ to show us what it really means to be human, that is, to share in God’s life. The one who denies a relationship with God is like a story that is half finished, or a building that has been abandoned before construction is complete. Each person “has a capacity to let loose in him or herself the risen Christ.” When the risen Christ is let loose in us, God’s image is renewed and restored, we are once more in communion with God through the Holy Spirit, and we participate in the kingdom of God, becoming by grace what God is by nature. Saint Maximus the Confessor (580–655) wrote, “Man by the grace of God can become that which God is.”       Prayer:      Lord, flood my soul with your grace. Hermes, K. J. (2009). Minute Meditations for Lent. (C. S. Se

Increase Our Faith! Lectio John 10:31–42 Meditatio “[M]any there began to believe in him.” Today’s Gospel begins to prepare us for the momentous events of Good Friday, one week from today. It describes what happened when some people picked up rocks to stone Jesus. He pointed out that he had shown them many good works from his Father and asked, “For which of these are you trying to stone me?” They answered that it was because “you, a man, are making yourself God.” Although they had seen the signs he worked, they did not believe. The people whom John describes at the end of today’s reading, instead, “began to believe in him.” What a contrast: unbelief and belief! We have received the gift of faith, through which we believe all that God has revealed. How does our faith affect our daily living? For example, we know that Jesus redeemed us. Does our belief lead us to confidently ask for forgiveness whenever we sin? Does our belief that God loves us unconditionally enkindle our trust in his p

  The Annunciation Mary showed complete trust in God by agreeing to be used as an instrument in his plan of salvation. She trusted him in spite of her nothingness because she knew he who is mighty could do great things in her and through her. Once she said “yes” to him, she never doubted. She was just a young woman, but she belonged to God and nothing nor anyone could separate her from him.”  St. Teresa of Calcutta

  God's Mercy Sets Us Free Pinocchio was free to tell a lie, but he was not free from the effect it had on his nose. Freedom is a fragile gift. Misusing it results in losing it and becoming a slave. Addiction confirms it. I may be free to take an addictive drug, but later I will not be free not to take it.  The truth is that God is love frees us from living in fear of him. God's mercy free us from attempting to hide our sin from him, like Adam and Eve, who clothed themselves and hid from God to avoid being seen in the nakedness of their accusing consciences. Lent is the season of running to God, not away from him.  God is omniscient and omnipresent. There is no shielding ourselves from his gaze. Avoiding him is slavery to the fear of condemnation. But there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:10). The only truth that frees us from avoiding the truth about sin is the higher truth of God's mercy. Faith in God's mercy is how we shall know that we

  A Shift In Prayer A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me. Anne Lamott

  Light A Candle I think the difference between me and some people is that I'm content to do my little bit. Sometimes people think they have to do big things in order to make change. But if each one would light a candle we'd have a tremendous light. Servant of God Thea Bowman

  Nicodemus  The readings today depict Jeremiah and Jesus as rejected prophets. Controversy swirls around Jeremiah, who is shocked and shaken to discover that his opponents have been “hatching plots” against him while he has been totally unsuspecting, “like a trusting lamb led to slaughter” (11:19). In the Gospel of John, controversy swirls around Jesus, too. The crowd is divided over the question of his origins. The Temple police are taken in by his teaching. Dissent even comes from within the Pharisees’ ranks, as Nicodemus objects, “Does our law condemn a person before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?” (Jn 7:51). The reappearance of Nicodemus, that “closet Christian” who came to Jesus under cover of night (see Jn 3:2), is an interesting development. His defense of Jesus is weak and ineffective. The sarcasm of his fellows easily dismisses him. He is not a hero, and sometimes defending one’s faith in Jesus requires nothing less than heroism. But Nicodemus’s heart is i

  St. Joseph Now, one hundred and fifty years after his proclamation as Patron of the Catholic Church by Blessed Pius IX (8 December 1870), I would like to share some personal reflections on this extraordinary figure, so close to our own human experience. For, as Jesus says, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt 12:34). My desire to do so increased during these months of pandemic, when we experienced, amid the crisis, how “our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. People who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, or on the latest television show, yet in these very days are surely shaping the decisive events of our history. Doctors, nurses, storekeepers and supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caregivers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety, volunteers, priests, men and women religious, and so very many others. They understood that no one is saved alone…

Cheerfulness  "A cheerful glance brings joy to the heart; good news invigorates the bones." ( Proverbs 15:30) Cheerfulness prepares a glorious mind for all the noblest acts.  St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

  Happy St. Patrick's Day! May the strength of God pilot us, may the wisdom of God instruct us, may the hand of God protect us, may the word of God direct us. Be always ours this day and for evermore. St. Patrick

  Spring Is Already Here! It is always springtime in the heart that loves God. St. John Vianney

  Don't Fear The Desert Throughout history there have been many men and women who have chosen to imitate Jesus as he withdraws into the desert... To pass time in the desert means to create a little emptiness and silence around us, to rediscover the road to our heart, to remove ourselves from the noise and external distractions, to enter into contact with the deepest source of our being and our faith. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa

  Letting Ourselves Receive the Love of God “He does not say to you as to Peter: Do you love me more than these? Listen to what he tells you: ‘Let yourself be loved more than these! That is, without fearing that any obstacle will be a hindrance to it, for I am free to pour out my love on whom I wish! “Let yourself be loved more than these” is your vocation. It is in being faithful to it that you will make me happy for you will magnify the power of my love. This love can rebuild what you have destroyed.  Let yourself be loved.’” St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

  We Belong To God We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters. We are God’s property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration. He has a triple claim upon us. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness, or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way, to depend on no one, to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man—that it is an unnatural state—may do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end. No, we are creatures; and, as being such, we have two duties, to be resigned and to be thankful. Let us then view God’s providences toward us more religi

  The Need For Beauty This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. St. Pope Paul VI

  Do Not Despise Small Beginnings We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. St. Oscar Romero

 The Gift of Intense Prayer In The Power of the Holy Spirit In facing the persecution it suffered for the cause of Jesus, not only was the community neither frightened nor divided but it was also deeply united in prayer, as one person, to invoke the Lord. I would say that this is the first miracle which is worked when because of their faith believers are put to the test. Their unity, rather than being jeopardized is strengthened because it is sustained by steadfast prayer. The Church must not fear the persecutions which she has been subjected to throughout her history but must always trust, like Jesus at Gethsemane, in the presence, help and power of God, invoked in prayer. Let us take a further step: what does the Christian community ask God at this moment of trial? It does not ask for the safety of life in the face of persecution, nor that the Lord get even with those who imprisoned Peter and John; it asks only that it be granted “to speak [his] word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29); i

  Returning to the Father's House Lectio Luke 15:1–3, 11–32 Meditatio “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.” Luke’s parable of the prodigal son moves me every time I hear it. It is too close to home. Who among us has not known the comparison and competition that makes us look at one another as rivals rather than brothers and sisters? We fear there will not be enough (of whatever), and we’d better protect our share. Who will look out for Number I, if I do not? Our loved ones look on in sorrow, but we take our share and off we go. The younger son wants his inheritance, and he wants it now. Without question, the father grants his son’s request, gives him his portion of the estate, and lets him go. He knows his son, knows he does not yet have the maturity, the experience, or the wisdom to make all the “right” choices. How vulnerable he will be in this cold and dangerous world! The son has to make his own mistakes, perhaps ma

  The Meaning of "Fear of the Lord" Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. Notice that when Scripture speaks of the fear of the Lord it does not leave the phrase in isolation, as if it were a complete summary of faith. No, many things are added to it, or are presupposed by it. From these we may learn its meaning and excellence. In the book of Proverbs Solomon tells us: If you cry out for wisdom and raise your voice for understanding, if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord. We see here the difficult journey we must undertake before we can arrive at the fear of the Lord.   We must begin by crying out for wisdom. We must hand over to our intellect the duty of making every decision. We must look for wisdom and search for it. Then we must understand the fear of the Lord.   “Fear” is not to be taken in the sense that common usage gives it. Fear in this ordinary sense is the trepidation ou

  The Power To Save May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 Come, says the Lord, I know you are ready to throw in the towel, but it is precisely at this moment that I offer you the leap of faith. You feel me to be far away. Instead, I am right at the door knocking, promising you freedom. Freedom doesn’t mean liberation from responsibility—a type of second childhood. No. I offer you a strong freedom—freedom from yourself, if you are willing to walk forward in abandonment to my designs for your life. No life can be compared to another, because infinite are my dreams for my children. I will extract you from wherever you feel caught in. You will experience my power to save as soon as you place your life into my hands. First you must believe, then you will see. Mine are strong hands, but they are safe hands.       Prayer:      Lord, show me the way to inner freedom. Hermes, K. J. (2009). Minute Meditations for Lent. (C. S. S

  Great Advice from Dr. Seuss When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you. Theodor Seuss "Ted" Geisel